gulizard, have you tried hosting a coop game or any multiplayer game yet? Laggy, smooth? And just to confirm you don't need a Gold account to host a game do you?

Nope - no I do not think so. I can't confirm because I have a gold account. I don't want to go through the trouble of signing up - I really don't have another email free..

As far as smooth theres not really a lot of servers yet but the one I did join ( I think it was a pirated server) because the people in it were talking about how they were able to download the game, but it ran smooth. I am more interested int he SP.. Like I said DX10 runs 60FPS, and dips into the 40's in large battles, but never dips down below unplayable, and when it does dip down to the 40's its all over 40-50-60 etc.

MSN and this game do not mix the moment someone signs in it doesn't minimize you but it does make it so that when you try to move as if the game is stuck, and you hear the windows sound as if you were holding down W on your desktop.. So Sign out before going in.